This application is based upon and claims the benefit of priority from the prior Japanese Patent Applications No. 11-181306, filed Jun. 28, 1999; and No. 11-183153, filed Jun. 29, 1999, the entire contents of which are incorporated herein by reference.
The present invention relates to a customer terminal apparatus and information distribution server.
Customer terminal apparatuses such as automatic vending machines and the like, which can issue various kinds of prints for pay to customers, are known.
However, in such automatic vending machine, the print cost per photo to be printed is considerably high, and the print fee bottlenecks soaring sales figures.
Various kinds of print information provided by the automatic vending machine are read out and issued as a print as needed in accordance with customers"" requests. The print information must be set and registered in that vending machine in advance, and when the print information is to be changed, a service person must go to the site of that vending machine to change the print information, resulting in troublesome maintenance jobs.
On the other hand, an on-line system in which the automatic vending machine is connected to a center via a communication line, and print information can be provided on-line in response to a customer""s request has been proposed. However, in such system, the vending machine must communicate with the center every time a customer operates. For this purpose, the communication line must be constantly connected, and when the center has closed, it cannot respond to a request from that terminal.
It is an object of the present invention to reduce the fee upon selling pay goods such as photo image prints or the like at a customer terminal apparatus.
It is another object of the present invention to allow easy maintenance by automatically distributing pay advertisement information provided to reduce the fee upon selling goods at the customer terminal apparatus via communications.
According to the present invention, a customer terminal apparatus which prints a photo image designated by a customer for pay while charging the customer a predetermined fee, is characterized in that advertisement information provided in advance by an advertiser is stored, whether or not the advertisement information is additionally printed on the photo image is designated, the fee is changed in accordance with the presence/absence of designation of the additional print, and upon printing the photo image designated by the customer, if the additional print is designated, that advertisement information is additionally printed.
Also, according to the present invention, a customer terminal apparatus operated by a customer, is characterized in that advertisement information sent from an information distribution server is received, the received advertisement information is stored, and upon selling a designated commodity on the basis of commodity information designated by the customer, the advertisement information, which is distributed from the information distribution server and stored, is output.
Furthermore, according to the present invention, an information distribution server for distributing information to a plurality of customer terminal apparatuses operated by customers, is characterized in that a plurality of pieces of advertisement information are stored, advertisement information to be output by each of the customer terminal apparatuses is selected from the plurality of pieces of advertisement information in units of customer terminal apparatuses, and the selected advertisement information is distributed to the corresponding customer terminal apparatus.
According to the present invention, in a customer terminal apparatus which prints a photo image designated by the customer for pay, when the customer designates additional print of advertisement information, since the fee for the pay photo is discounted or becomes free, the customer can get a low-priced or free photo image print.
Ordinarily, the print process of a photo image is expensive. However, according to the present invention, since advertisement information is additionally printed on that photo image, the sales cost per photo print can be minimized (free in some cases) by imposing that print cost on the advertiser. On the customer side, despite the demerit that an advertisement is added, the low price is attractive. Therefore, a vending apparatus which can stimulate potential demands for printing photo images can be provided.
Especially for the advertiser, since its advertisement is composited and printed on a photo print of an end user, and such prints are highly likely to be distributed to many people, a high advertising effect of that advertisement is expected. Even when the advertisement fee is high, such cost is well paid, and consumers and advertisers can both benefit.
Also, according to the present invention, since the pay advertisement information stored in the customer terminal apparatus is simultaneously automatically distributed from the server apparatus on the center side and is updated if required, not only easy maintenance of the pay advertisement information but also low communication cost can be achieved.
Furthermore, when there are a plurality of customer terminal apparatuses, advertisement information which is most suitable for a group of customers who operate each customer terminal apparatus or an area where the apparatus of interest is set is selected from a large number of pieces of advertisement information, and the selected advertisement information can be immediately distributed.
Additional objects and advantages of the invention will be set forth in the description which follows, and in part will be obvious from the description, or may be learned by practice of the invention. The objects and advantages of the invention may be realized and obtained by means of the instrumentalities and combinations particularly pointed out hereinafter.